Snapshots
by Viviene Wilde
Summary: A series of one-shots based upon different scenarios in and missing from X-Men Origins. Part Two: Emma and Scott are well aware that time does not heal all wounds.
1. One

Snapshots

_There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go._

_ - Tennessee Williams _

It was just past five o'clock on a Friday afternoon and the streets were bustling with activity. Traffic polluted the roads and the sidewalks were packed with bodies and bicycles. He weaved his way through the throngs of people, unsure of where he was going, but quite certain he needed to end up somewhere at some eventual time.

Since he had left his house this morning at a quarter past ten, Wade had gone for a coffee, bought a new pair of shoes, picked up a few comic books, gone for another coffee, met a pretty girl, rescued a kitten from a tree (for no reason other than he was bored), gone for another coffee, met another pretty girl, bought a goldfish, gave his goldfish to a boy on the bus, gone for another coffee, played guitar with a homeless man, and was now unsure of what was left to do with his time.

His days were numbered, that much he knew. Maybe he had hours to live, maybe minutes. One could never be sure when their clock would stop ticking. Wade had decided, long ago, to live every minute. He didn't sleep more than fifteen minutes a night. Not only was there too much caffeine in his system, he just had too much to do before his life came to an end.

It was killing him, this thing that his doctor had called cancer. This thing that his doctor had caught far too late to do anything; it was killing him. Of course, Wade had killed his doctor, but that didn't change the fact that he would be dead soon as well. When looking at it from the other end, death wasn't as peachy as he had thought.

So, for three months, five days, eight hours, twenty-two minutes, and thirty-seven seconds, Wade had not killed a single thing. Not even a fly. Well, maybe a spider or two, but they were too creepy to be allowed amongst the living. Wade knew he'd be joining the spiders soon. He wasn't too fond of that thought.

He wore long sleeves and pants in the summer heat of Chicago as to not let the world know he was dying. He wore sunglasses to hide the bags under his eyes and to hide his eyes from the Sun. He went out every morning at a quarter past ten; unsure of what he would do that day, but knowing it would never be a wasted one.

Wade stopped suddenly, people bumping into him from behind and mumbling rude remarks. He didn't care. He didn't even make a witty comment back. He didn't have the time to waste. Not when he finally realized what he was going to do next.

Suicide had never been an option for Wade. He could dish out death like the grim reaper, but everything changes when you're about to die. He was scared shitless of closing his eyes and never having them open again. There was no way – no bullets, no pain killers, no jumping – no way in hell that he would ever do himself in. But now he didn't have to. Standing there, across the street in front of Starbucks, watching him ever so carefully, was a man Wade knew all too well. The one with the creepy fingernails. Victor Creed.

Wade crossed the street in the gridlock traffic, unafraid of being hit as everything was at a complete standstill. Victor watched him with amused eyes, a grin spread ear to ear.

"Good to see you Wilson," Victor chuckled, his bare arms rippling with muscle. Wade gave a cheeky grin.

"Missed you, you old murdering psycho. How's Jimmy?" Just because he didn't usually mess with people anymore didn't mean he had forgotten how to. Victor tensed at the use of their old team mate's name coming so freely from Wade's chapped lips. "Feel like a coffee, Vicky?" Wade nodded his head towards the Starbucks door two feet away.

_--* _

"You look rough," Victor commented as the two men took their seats at the back of the coffee shop, "You on a diet or something?"

"You could say that," Wade grinned, "Coffee and pills, pretty much. Sometimes celery and animal crackers." He always enjoyed annoying Victor. It was something he had wanted to do again before dying.

"You know," Victor said, "Stryker set me here to offer you a deal."

"Really now?" Wade let his jaw drop slightly with his sarcastic tone. Victor tapped his dirty nails on the wooden table, letting them grow slightly in warning. Wade remained unfazed.

"Personally," Victor continued, "I never liked you. I still don't like you. I'd rather just kill you, but I'm supposed to remain, uh, civil."

"Civil people cut their finger nails," Wade said in a patronizing tone, enjoying the fact that Victor put slight scratches into the surface of the table. After a composing breath, Victor grinned.

"Stryker's got a project. He wants you to help with it."

"And what's in it for me?"

"I don't kill you once you're done your latte…"

"It's a Frappucino," Wade interrupted.

"I don't kill you once you're done your latte," Victor repeated, "And we cure you cancer. You get to live and you get to keep killing."

Wade tried hard not to choke on his frozen drink. Come to think of it, he was unsurprised that Stryker knew. What surprised him was the fact that he was being offered another chance. He had always, for some unfathomable reason, gotten the impression that Stryker didn't like him all that much.

"So, what's it gonna be Wilson?" Victor was staring at him intently, waiting for him to decline so that he could kill him. There would be no more cancer and there wouldn't have to be a suicide. Just Victor's nails digging through his flesh, taking him out of his misery. Wade envisioned the scenario within his mind, finally realizing how truly gross it would be to get stabbed by those unsanitary…things he kept on his fingers.

"I'm up for another adventure," Wade grinned, "Me and you, right buddy?" He leaned forward and playfully pinched Victor's cheek before getting up and walking out of the coffee shop, waiting for his new playmate. Things were certainly starting to look up for Wade Wilson.

Author's Note:

I don't own X-Men or anything like that.  
This is just a series of one-shots based upon things that happened in and around X-Men Origins.  
I appreciate reviews and constructive criticism.  
I'm also up for suggestions of things people would like to see written about.  
I hope you enjoyed this. Please review.

-Viviene


	2. Two

Snapshots

Part Two

_If you're going through hell, keep going._

_-Winston Churchill _

She remembered clearly the first time he had arrived. His body, drugged and unconscious, had been roughly thrown into the dirty cell next to hers, his flaccid limbs bending in every direction, his head hitting the ground with a sickening thud. She had watched with narrowed eyes as the guards kicked the boy around a little before leaving him to slowly rot in his prison. She had seen it all, and she had begun to pity this boy, whose name she did not know; the boy with the strange mask over his eyes. She figured that those eyes were terribly dangerous and she longed to have a look at them, to know what they could do, to know what had landed him in this awful place.

She remembered him waking up, hours later. She had watched him the entire time, barely blinking, knowing he was alive due only to the slight rising and falling of his lean chest. It was faint enough not to notice, but she knew it was there. She didn't see his eyes open, but she knew he had woken. The rest of his face bunched up in terror. His body tensed and his head ready in a hundred different directions, searching for answers that were not visible to him. She knew he was blinded. She could hear the horrified hitching in his throat; the petrified breathing of a boy who had just had something very important stolen from him. Slowly, she crawled towards the bars that separated them.

"It's okay," she whispered her lie, "Everything is going to be okay." He stopped moving so violently and his head whipped in her direction. His breathing calmed as he clumsily struggled closer to her, until there was nothing but two inches and metal bars between his face and hers.

"Where am I?" he asked in a voice that was far too brave for his frail and broken looking body.

"On the Island," she answered, unsure of what other reply would suffice. "There's a bunch of us here."

"Mutants?" his voice starting shaking again, and she knew in her simple answer she had confirmed his awful suspicions.

"Yeah," she sighed, wishing she could take back her words and hide this beautiful boy from the appalling truth of their situation.

"Who are you?" The question was unexpected, posed with an almost threatening growl. Frowning, she stuck her hand through the bars and placed her palm against his smooth cheek, hoping to calm him.

"My name's Emma," she whispered, "I'm a friend."

"Scott," his voice was breathy as he reached up and placed his hand over hers, "Nice to meet you."

---*

She remembered the first time they had gotten into trouble because of each other. It was a memory that, no matter how hard she tried, remained fresh in her mind and would continue to do so for as long as she lived. Had she known Victor was watching, nothing would have ever come to be and the scars that plagued her and Scott, both physically and emotionally, would have never existed.

Victor had always looked at her a little longer than was necessary every time he passed. He had always held her a little bit tighter than was necessary each time he brought her to the experiment rooms. For a time, she had enjoyed the attention, thinking that she could use it to her advantage. And then, Scott arrived and everything Emma had ever known before flew straight out the window.

She remembered holding Scott's hands through the bars, his fingers gently caressing her bony knuckles, too slim from lack of eating properly. She remembered how they would each lean their heads against the metal and whisper sentiments to one another. She remembered how their breaths mingled as they spoke and silently laughed, passing the time in hell until they reached heaven. But most of all, she remembered the look in Victor's eyes when he had seen them. For a moment, there was absolute jealousy and rage, as if no one had the right to touch her in that way, save for him. Quickly though, it replaced with sinister humour and Emma knew that something was to go terribly wrong.

They didn't come right away, though Emma knew they would eventually. Victor was trying to lull her into a false sense of security, as a predator was apt to do. She wasn't fooled. She barely talked to Scott for two days, hoping to spare him the horrors of jealousy-driven revenge. It was a waste of time on her part. They came two days later, and they took Scott first.

She remembered screaming as they knocked him to the floor and beat him severely. There were four of them, including Victor, against a thin and feeble Scott, who was weak from experimentation and hunger. They kicked and punched until there was hardly an inch of visible skin beneath the blood and bruises. Then they picked up his broken body and took it away, leaving nothing but a pool of blood in their wake.

Emma didn't sleep for the next thirty-seven hours, her stomach flipping, a feeling of bile rising in her throat every time a guard passed her cell. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she saw him approaching. Shakily, she got to her feet, her face fierce.

"What did you do with him, you animal?" she hissed, her voice so much more hoarse than she remembered.

"With who?" he grinned, revealing his sharp teeth. Emma felt her stomach wrench. If she ever got out of here, Victor better hope he was miles underground.

"Scott," she growled, "I swear, if you…" her voice trailed off as she was unable to bring herself to think of the possibilities. Victor began to chuckle.

"Your boyfriend?" his eyes narrowed at the use of the word, "He's alive, sunshine. You want to see him?" He pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket and jingled them in front of her face. Emma shot him a dirty glare as he unlocked the cell and let himself in. She didn't dare pull anything, for fear that Scott's life hung in the balance of her good behaviour and bad behaviour.

"There's a good girl," Victor cooed, running his fingers through her limp hair before firmly gripping her arms and leading her out of the place she had come to know as home.

They were keeping Scott in an empty, grey room, tied to a chair. Her eyes welled with tears to see him alive, though he barely looked like the Scott she remembered. What she could see of his face was swollen and purple and his hair was matted with blood.

"Oh God," she whimpered, wishing she could run to him and hold him tight. His head perked up at the sound of her voice.

"Emma," he whispered, his mouth dry and his lips chapped, "Emma…"

"Scott," she could no longer hold back her tears as she struggled to free herself from Victor's possessive grip, "What did they do to you?"

"You kids make me sick," Victor made a gagging noise before kicking Emma forward, his boot knocking against her slender back. She fell face first to Scott's feet, her chin skidding across the concrete floor and cracking open. Before she could shake the dizziness from her head, Emma heard the cocking of several guns. Her heart sunk into her stomach. They were going to shoot. Bullets would not damage her, but they would kill Scott. And she was going to have to watch. Horrified, she jumped to her feet, placing herself defensively in front of Scott, her body suddenly glimmering with a million tiny diamonds.

"You can't do this," Emma tried to sound braver than she felt, "Stryker won't let you."

"Stryker's not here," Victor chuckled, "What he don't know, won't hurt him. The poor kid died of starvation or something."

"He'll want a body," Emma was grasping at straws now. She did not hear a single sound coming from Scott. She wondered how he could be so brave as to not beg for his own life.

"Ready," Victor winked at her, "Aim…Fire."

Emma closed her eyes, expecting to feel the bullets ricochet off her body. She expected to hear the sounds of gun fire and Scott's pained gasps as she proved to be not enough to protect him. Instead, there was nothing. There was simply shocked silence. She morphed back to normal form, her eyes open and taking in the sights of the room.

The six gunmen around her lay bleeding on the floor and a man, the one she remembered they called Wilson, had Victor pinned against the wall with a rather menacing katana blade. The fair-haired man was almost as thin as Scott, but his eyes burned with intense anger.

"Are you stupid, Creed?" Wilson hissed, confusing Emma greatly. Beside Victor, this Wilson character was Stryker's left hand man. Surely, they had planned this together.

"Wait," Wilson continued, "Don't even bother answering that."

"Get off of me, Wade," Victor commanded. So that was his name, Emma thought as she watched the two men in shock, Wade.

"We need the boy," Wade stated, "He's going to make me magic. You're not going to screw that up. Now go and put them back before I clip your fingers." Wade released Victor, spitting at his feet and walking away without paying any attention to Emma or Scott. It was something out of a fairy tale. Emma suddenly remembered that no matter how much like hell a fairy tale looked, there was always a happy ending. All you had to do was reach the end.

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading and to everyone who reviewed the last instalment. I do hope you enjoyed this one as well. Please let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is welcome, and so are suggestions for future chapters. Thanks again. –Viviene.


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